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American Military Chaplains and the Vietnam War

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American Military Chaplains and the Vietnam War View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository CONFLICT AND COMPROMISE: AMERICAN MILITARY CHAPLAINS AND THE VIETNAM WAR by Jacqueline Earline Whitt A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2008 Approved by: Dr. Richard H. Kohn Dr. Yaakov Ariel Dr. Donald Mathews Dr. Jerma Jackson Dr. Alex Roland © 2008 Jacqueline Earline Whitt ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT JACQUELINE E. WHITT: Conflict and Compromise: American Military Chaplains and the Vietnam War (Under the direction of Richard H. Kohn) Military chaplains, serving alongside American servicemen and women, have lived and worked at the cultural and institutional intersections of religion and war. Understanding how chaplains experienced the Vietnam War—as military officers and as clergy—illuminates both the sympathies and tensions between faith and war. This dissertation examines chaplains’ experiences and reflections of the Vietnam War in order to track that war’s effects on chaplains personally and on the institutional chaplaincy. Chaplains acted as “cultural mediators” or links between religious and military cultures in situations that demanded explanation and reconciliation. Chaplains’ experiences highlighted the stress fracturing the nation as “Vietnam” came to represent a failure of both American foreign policy and a certain vision of American identity. This dissertation examines the impact of the Vietnam War on chaplains as individuals and on the institutional chaplaincy. The dissertation uses four types of primary sources: Chaplain Corps official records; first person accounts of Vietnam-era chaplains; oral interviews with chaplains; and publications of the mainstream media, the popular religious press, and denominational organizations. These materials uncover not only the structural and organizational workings of the chaplaincy, but also the cultural patterns and ideas that influenced chaplains and those around them. The dissertation is organized into three parts. The first part examines the religious, cultural, and international contexts of the early Cold War in order to contextualize the Vietnam War. The second part deals iii with the combat period of the Vietnam War, roughly 1962-1973; its three chapters examine chaplains’ official functions, chaplains’ experiences, and chaplains’ relationship to homefront communities. The third part of the dissertation deals with post-Vietnam responses and changes among chaplains and within the institutional chaplaincy. Chaplains remain at the forefront of discussions about the relationship between religion and war, and the reverberations from Vietnam are intense. Several contemporary situations reveal uncertainty about the chaplain’s role in the modern United States military. Many of these questions are rooted in the tensions of chaplains’ experiences in the Vietnam War. Understanding the chaplaincy during this period provides important insights into the history of both religion and the military in late twentieth century America. iv To Earline Harris Edwards and Ruth “Jackie” Martin Whitt v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Popular imagination might harbor images of an academic sequestered in a dusty library or archive, scribbling (or typing) furiously until a finished product emerges, yet we know that research and writing are never solitary undertakings. This dissertation is certainly no exception. The journey to this project began at Hollins University under the careful direction of Peter Coogan, Andre Spies, Ruth Doan, and Joe Leedom. Forming a small but formidable department, they taught me about history, writing, and community. In a more immediate way, I must thank my advisor, Richard Kohn, for enthusiastic support during my graduate career, for a careful eye for detail and style, and for consistently pushing me to refine my arguments and explanations. My readers, Yaakov Ariel, Donald Mathews, Jerma Jackson, and Alex Roland likewise provided stimulating conversations and indispensable critiques and suggestions. Three colleagues from Duke and UNC, Seth Dowland, Elesha Coffman, and Matt Harper, provided critical feedback, commiseration, and encouragement as our writing group transcended the Tobacco Road rivalry to read and comment on one another’s work. Further, colleagues in four research seminars read drafts carefully and thoughtfully and entertained my more-than- occasional ramblings on the connections between military and religious history. The United States Army Center of Military History provided a generous dissertation- writing grant, which enabled me to focus on my final year of dissertation writing. The Faherty Fund for research in military history and the Mowry Dissertation Grant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill also provided critical funds for research and travel. I also owe a debt of gratitude to the historians and librarians at the Army Chaplain School and Center at Fort vi Jackson, South Carolina, especially historian John Brinsfield and librarian Donna Dellinger. They provided access to documents, work space, and thought-provoking conversations about my project. Laura Lumb, an outstanding undergraduate student at UNC carefully transcribed two oral history interviews. Finally, this project would have been impossible without the help of chaplains who served in Vietnam; their correspondence and willingness to send information and out-of-print books was invaluable. Special thanks are due to James Johnson, Jackson Day, and Joseph Beasley who generously agreed to be interviewed. My Writing Center friends and colleagues bridged the gap between those who commented and read my work and those who kept me sane in the process. It has been a supportive and friendly environment, and working there has made me a more critical reader and a more careful writer. Finally, my family and friends—and the clean laundry, hot meals, SNATH activities, and good conversation they provided—are quite possibly the reason this is finished. I could not hope to repay the debts I have incurred, but as always, the mistakes, omissions, and oversights that remain are entirely my own. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . .1 Chaplains in the United States Military . 7 Chaplains as Cultural Mediators . .8 Sources and Methodology . .14 Organization . 17 CHAPTER I. FOR GOD AND COUNTRY: CIVIC AND RELIGIOUS FAITHS IN THE EARLY COLD WAR . .22 An American Way of Life and Civil Religion . 25 Public Theology and the Cold War . .34 Military and Religious Convergences and Conversations . .45 Initial Forays into Vietnam . 58 II. BUILDING A NETWORK OF RELIGIOUS SUPPORT . .70 Providing Chaplain Coverage . 74 Professional Guidelines and Policy Directives . 93 Pastoral and Military Relationships . 109 III. CONTESTED MEANING AND IDENTITIES: CHAPLAINS RESPOND TO CONFLICT IN COMBAT ZONES . 118 Theorizing the Chaplain Experience: Role Conflict . .122 Morality and Identity . 127 Liturgies of War . 144 The Morality of the Vietnam War . .167 viii IV. CHAPLAINS AND HOMEFRONT DEBATES ABOUT VIETNAM . 170 Priest versus Prophet: Defining the Chaplain’s Role in War . 173 Civilianizing the Chaplaincy . .189 Using Chaplains Symbolically . 197 Implications for Wider Debates about Religious Responses to Vietnam. .203 V. REFLECTION AND RECONCILIATION: CHAPLAINS INTERPRET THE WAR . .212 Bad Chaplains and the Challenges of Genre . 214 Chaplains Write the Vietnam War . 233 VI. INSTITUTIONAL CHALLENGES AND REORGANIZATION AFTER VIETNAM . .253 Mainline and Liberal Critique . 254 Conservatives Gain Influence . 264 Organizational Restructuring and Changing the Chaplaincy’s Mission . .269 CONCLUSION . .289 BIBLIOGRAPHY . .299 ix INTRODUCTION In December 1967, in Bien Hoa Province, Vietnam, Catholic chaplain Angelo J. Liteky was caught with Company A, 4th Battalion, 12th Infantry, 199th Light Infantry Brigade in an intense firefight. Over the course of the battle, Liteky, himself wounded, evacuated more than twenty wounded and dead soldiers to a landing zone and directed several medivac choppers in and out of the area. Liteky’s citation for the Congressional Medal of Honor told of heroic deeds in the face of danger—in addition to evacuating many men to safety, he prayed with men who were dying and observed last rites for the dead while bullets flew fewer than fifteen feet away. On the surface, Liteky displayed precisely the courage and self-sacrificial actions that popular images of heroic chaplains might suggest. He showed concern for his men but also was intimately involved in the military’s mission. In a 2000 interview, Liteky recalled “I was 100 percent behind going over there and putting those Communists in their place . I had no problems with that. I thought I was going there doing God's work.” 1 Yet Liteky’s case was far more complicated than a simple story of unexpected battlefield heroism. He left the chaplaincy in 1971 and the priesthood in 1975, “mainly because of celibacy.” In subsequent years, Liteky took up the cause of human rights abuses in Central America, vociferously protesting American foreign policy there, especially the Reagan administration’s support for Nicaraguan Contra rebels. In July 1986, Liteky renounced his Medal of Honor and its attendant benefits; he placed the medal, along with a letter to Ronald Reagan, in a paper bag and left it at the Vietnam Veterans’ memorial wall in Washington, D.C. Liteky 1 (Charles) Angelo
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